“Death is such an unfair process. Why is it that I, a future student at Harvard—someone who has worth—die at age eighteen when rapists live to eighty in jail? It’s completely ridiculous. You would think that God would have some common sense, but apparently—“
“Shut up, Tin Man.”
“How ‘bout you shut up, Barbie.”
“Calm down, kids! Now please, Troy, try to be optimistic. At least you’re not dead yet.”
“C’mon, Dad. You really think we’re going to survive? Open your eyes! Open your mind! Do you not see what I see? Is your mind so shut to anything unfortunate or adverse that you do not realize where we are? We’re in hell, father! Hell!”
* Six days earlier * * *
Keith Tinlen awoke to the sound of boisterous blue and yellow macaws and blinding golden Ecuadorian sunlight. Doom was looming over his shoulder.
At the sound of the breakfast bell, he rose and dressed in typical tourist attire: a Hawaiian shirt two sizes too big, blue and white checkered Bermuda shorts, a tattered Cubs cap, and his dreadful purple Teva sandals that his mom made him wear. As he jogged to the dining hall, he rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes. The dining hall sat on an old stone foundation, and the roof was made of palm leaves overlapped and piled on top of each other. There were no real walls; just a burnt-yellow bamboo railing that had thin wooden pylons descending from it every few feet. As he arrived he noticed there was no food set up at the buffet as there was on typical days.
“Keith, finally you've arrived!” exclaimed Hernan. He was in his first year of guiding tourists through the rainforest, but Keith liked him. Hernan was as buff a person as Keith had ever seen; with wavy black hair that fell to his broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and a thick Spanish accent, he was any and every woman’s dream.
“Yeah, uh, where’s the food?” inquired Keith, trying not to let on that he was starving.
“Ah, sí, sí sí. I forgot to tell you last night at dinner. Today we hike to the salt lick to see the parrots your mother had asked about. We must arrive very early, though. We will eat on the trail. Okay?”
“I guess so,” replied Keith as his stomach voiced its own opinion.
“Well then, sit down so I can give the briefing.”
Keith sat on one of the many wooden benches in the briefing area—it was wet. He looked up at the ceiling and, conveniently, had a drop of water splash into his right eye.
“Hernan?
“Yes?”
“I think the roof’s leaking.”
“Nonsense, the roof never leaks.”
“A drop of water just hit me in the eye—it has to be leaking.”
“That roof has never leaked once in the fifty years it has stood here.” He paused for effect, then finished defiantly, “It’s not leaking.”
Keith decided to let it go, and instead sat reluctantly on another bench next to his sister, Amy. Amy was eight, four years younger than Keith, and had justed started third grade. In Keith’s eyes, Amy was the most annoying twerp there ever was. Between her incessant whining and endless pouting, she was an older brother’s nightmare. Amy had golden blonde hair, just like her mom, and sparkling blue eyes. Troy, Keith’s eighteen year-old brother, always called her Barbie because she so closely resembled the dolls she played with. Amy didn’t find it very amusing.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here is the plan for our hike to the salt lick we will be embarking on this morning. First, we will hike one mile—about half an hour—before eating breakfast. Then we will hike six more miles—about three hours—to the salt lick, where we will eat lunch. At about three we will leave the salt lick and head back on the same trail. We should return here in time for dinner, about six-thirty. Any questions?”
Amy raised her hand high and bounced up and down in here seat.
“Yes, Amy?”
“Are we gonna see any jaguars? We learned about those in school.”
“Lo siento Amy, but jaguars are very rare. We will probably not see one on the trail.”
“Oh… but what if we do?”
“We will not—I assure you.”
“Yeah, but wh—”
Keith's dad cut her off before she could pester Hernan any more. “Amy! Let it go.”
“Hmph,” was all she could say to that, and so she turned around to sulk.
“Alright then,” said Hernan, clearly trying to move the conversation along to avoid more conflict. “Let’s get going.”
They began their journey with Hernan in front, followed by Charlotte, the mother of the family, then Troy, Amy, Keith, and finally John, the father. They headed behind the dining hall and through the hallway in the dense rainforest that was the trail.
It was hot—too hot for the Tinlen family. In Maine, their home, it rarely got above eighty degrees. Not only did Hernan’s thermometer register a temperature above ninety-five, it was so humid that Keith felt like he was swimming rather than walking. After half an hour of hiking under the lucious green canopy that stood above they stopped for breakfast. They munched on bananas and crackers and drank water from there Nalgene bottles as they sat on moist, moss-layered boulders.
The family continued on, past a gleaming waterfall that tossed its water out of a natural drainage ditch into a gleaming stream, a giant, clay-red anthill that made Amy cringe, and finally they arrived at a vast, green, clearing. It was there that their adventure truly began.
As the convoy of tourists and guide entered the south end of the clearing, something else entered from the north. Everyone froze.
“Stay still, don’t move,” commanded Hernan in a harsh whisper. “He’ll go away after he realizes we’re not trying to hurt him.” Despite his reassurances, Hernan raised his machete and slowly took off his pack and lowered it to the ground beside him to maximize his agility. The jaguar’s deep yellow eyes stared at Keith in what he determined was pure rage. Its golden-brown skin shone in the blistering orange sun as its tail swayed slowly in the cool June breeze. It had dark brown spots with an impenetrable black lining that adorned its invitingly soft-looking fur coat. The great cat’s ears were perked, standing straight up like great curved pyramids. After several minutes of the silent staring contest, Amy spoke.
“Daddy?” she asked, far too loudly, considering the circumstances.
“Amy, hush,” whispered John.
“But daddy—” She was whining now, much, much too loudly.
“Amy—quiet!” commanded her father. His face was fire engine red with fury and frustration.
She strained her vocal chords to their breaking point and let it all out in two, window-shattering syllables: “Daddy!”
The jaguar crouched, bending its legs as though it was winding a giant, lethal, spring. It leapt with determination and resolve. Hernan took a slash at the beast, but was a fraction of a second too late. Just as the blade of the machete was about to slice through the jaguar's skin, Hernan was knocked backwards by the force of the feline's lunge. Hernan dropped the machete as he fell, and the jaguar sank its canine teeth deep into his throat. Once its prey had been killed, the jaguar dragged Hernan out of the clearing, through the opening the cat had entered through originally, and left the Tinlen family staring in awe and horror.
Then, after what had occured sank in, the group scattered in panic and alarm. John snatched the machete from the forest floor, then directed the family to the east side of the clearing. They spotted a small opening in the thick jungle and dashed through the forest in a fit of adrenaline as hanging vines and looming brances whipped their faces and the dense undergrowth tried to fling them head over heels with every step. They sprinted at an unimaginable speed for at least ten minutes, then, at a small clearing, John halted. The family collapsed to the moist forest floor of composting leaves and twigs, panting and drenched with sweat.
“What,” said Keith heavily, as though he had a car on his chest, “are we gonna do now?”
“We’ve got to get back to camp,” suggested Amy as if this was just an everyday situation, nothing too serious.
“Oh my God, that’s it. ‘We’ve got to get back to camp’—she’s brilliant!” exclaimed Troy in a much too obviously sarcastic tone.
“Calm down kids,” instructed their father. “I suggest we send one person to look for camp while the rest stay here. We still have the packed lunches and a few water bottles, so there’s no need to worry about food. When our ambassador finds the camp, they’ll organize a search party and we’ll be back in our beds by tomorrow.”
“You've got to be kidding me," retorted Charlotte as her mother's instincts kicked in. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you send one of my kids out there to die!"
"Oh, come on, honey," pleaded John. "Keith or Troy could get to camp in no time. I think it's a great plan."
"What kind of father are you, John! You're sending one of our children out there into the wilderness after our guide just got eaten by a jaguar! Are you insane?" She was fuming now, furious with John's indifference to their children's well-being. "You are not sending anyone out there alone." With that Charlotte stomped over to a tree and sat with her back against it. She was exhausted, hungry, and had no desire whatsoever to stay in the forest a second longer. Her dirty-blond hair was frizzy, sweaty, and in serious need of taming. Her thin body ached and her deep blue eyes were somber. A tear raced down her cheek, then another trailing close behind, and soon enough she was sobbing.
The rest of the family was as forlorn as their mother. Troy's long black hair was wet with sweat and drooped with fatigue. John's jutting cheek-bones were bloodstained from slashes underbrush had induced as he had run through the rainforest. His Coke-bottle glasses were smudged and his temple vein stood out like a ridge amidst floodplain.
There was silence. Nobody said anything, for nobody had anything to say. Finally, after minutes of harsh panting and the wiping sweat from foreheads, Keith spoke.
"I'll go," he murmured so quietly that Charlotte had to strain to hear it.
"What?" asked John, surprised.
"I'll go," he declared, a little louder this time.
"No way!" objected Charlotte.
"Mom, somebody has to go! We can't just sit here waiting to starve--we've got to do something."
"Keith, please," pleaded his mother. "Don't do this. You don't have to go, we can think of another plan."
"No, mom. I'm going."
"But--" She threw her arms up and strode to the opposite end of their small clearing as tears of frustration and helplessness began to flow from her eyes. She weeped loud enough for the rest of the family to hear, whether on purpose or not the rest of the family didn't know.
John broke the awkward silence. "You can take this pack. It’s got a banana, some bread, a water bottle, and a few crackers. Take the machete too," he said as he handed Keith Hernan's blade. "You’ll do fine.” John threw the pack onto Keith’s shoulders and gave him a hefty pat on the back. “Good luck,” he added, and lightly pushed him towards the jungle as he pointed south. “Go that way.”
With that, Keith left the clearing as his family offered their goodbyes:
“Have fun out there, bro,” called Troy.
“I’m hungry,” whined Amy.
“See you later son,” said John. “Make me proud.”
Finally, his mother: “You’ll do fine Keith. I love you.”
Keith paused momentarily at his mother's comment, then continued on. He wandered along aimlessly, not knowing where he was to go. At about eight-thirty the sun began to set. The blazing orange sphere sank slowly into the dark purple crevice of dusk, and then into the black abyss of night. Keith found himself a decent-sized tree and climbed up its rough, scraping, limbs. He found a spot where two thick branches met the trunk in the same place and sat upright, back against the tree, legs supported by the branches, and feet dangling over the emptiness beneath him. He was starved, as he had been all day, and ate the banana and the crackers, but left the bread—he would eat that for breakfast. He took a few swigs from his water bottle, then closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but he became engulfed in the thought of his family.
He stayed up all night thinking. At first light he ate his bread, then descended from his nest like a fireman down his pole and started walking. At about noon it started to rain. It was really more than rain though. It was a downpour, with pea-sized drops that felt like bullets on Keith’s bare face. He stopped walking and hid below the relative shelter of a tree, trying to soak up all the dryness he could. He finished off his water bottle and moved on.
Keith slept in the same fashion as he had the night before, but this evening he fell asleep as soon as he rested his head on the trunk of his tree. In the morning he woke up and cut his way through the jungle until dusk, then found a tree and slept. He repeated this routine for three more days. On the fifth day the rain relapsed, this time as a Seattle-style drizzle, and on the sixth the trouble started.
At dusk, when the drizzle finally let up, Keith decided, foolishly, to stay walking through the night. Keith was not a moron, just intoxicated with his mission, drunk with the idea of having a family that was proud of him. He hiked through the night without event until he heard the rustling.
It came from the forest to his left, and, remembering the jaguar from before, fled immediately. He raced through the jungle, vines whipping and cutting his dirtied face. He attempted to cut away the vegetation in front of him with the machete, but to no avail. As he sprinted he came upon a root, raised maybe an inch off the ground. As his foot hit the wood, still slick from the rains of the afternoon, he slipped.
He threw his hands out in front of him as he fell, which broke his fall and his left wrist. In the throes of hunger, suffering from extreme pain, muddy, and soaking wet, Keith lay on the ground. To his right he saw something—a frog. He knew he had no choice. His right hand darted out and quickly, without thinking, he popped the bright yellow frog into his mouth. The poison dart frog slipped silently down Keith’s throat and set the gears of death in motion.
He had sobered up from his idiotic nighttime endeavor and climbed the nearest tree. As he reclined into a soggy slumber, he saw the light.
* *
“Tin Man,” called Amy from across the clearing, “what’s gonna happen to us?”
“First of all, my name’s not Tin Man. Second of all, what do you think is gonna happen? We are going to die!”
“Mellow out, Troy,” instructed his father.
“Death will come to us all eventually, Troy," said Charlotte in a philosophical tone. "We must accept it as fact and move on.”
“Yeah, whatever, but it’s just so preposterous,” continued Troy. “Death is such an unfair process. Why is it that I, a future student at Harvard—someone who has worth—die at age eighteen when rapists live to eighty in jail? It’s completely ridiculous. You would think that God would have some common sense, but apparently—“
“Shut up, Tin Man.”
“How ‘bout you shut up, Barbie.”
“Calm down, kids! Now please, Troy, try to be optimistic. At least you’re not
dead yet.”
“C’mon, Dad. You really think we’re going to survive? Open your eyes! Open your mind! Do you not see what I see? Is your mind so shut to anything unfortunate or adverse that you do not realize where we are? We’re in hell, father! Hell!”
“Heaven or hell,” said Charlotte smoothly, “we must stay optimistic. I bet Keith and the search party’ll be walking down that trail any minute now.”
“Keith? What a joke! That little twerp is probably crying next to a tree somewhere because he’s been away from his mommy for too long. You guys should have sent me—I would’ve been back at that camp in a minute!” said Troy.
“Yeah, Keith’s a goner,” added Amy.
“Amy, Troy, I’ve had enough of you two!” Charlotte was full to the brim with anger. Never before had her voice been raised above a calm command, and yet now she stood and roared with all of her throat’s might. “Your brother is out there in the jungle risking his life so that you two can survive, not so that you can sit here whining and complaining like the sick, spoiled, nightmarish children you are! Now if either one of you says one more thing about your brother that has any negative connotation whatsoever, you’ll be searching for the camp too—except you won’t get any food! So shut up and sit down!”
Troy and Amy were looking down, as if the top of their heads would deflect the outburst. They said nothing for a long, long time.
* *
Sitting in his perch among the foliage, Keith spotted the spotlight on the resort’s lookout tower. In a matter of seconds he was on the ground running. As he dashed through the forest in the light of the moon, he began to feel dizzy. His world began to spin like he was standing on a dradle. Lightheaded with exhaustion, Keith continued to stumble his way towards the camp.
He had found the trail by accident, and could see the dining hall in the distance now, a speck of light at the end of a long stretch of trail. He staggered along, unaware of the imminent doom and thinking only of his family and how proud they would be. Keith swayed from side to side—he was five feet from the resort grounds. He lurched forward step by step as it began to drizzle little drops of heaven. Keith had entered the resort grounds and was ten feet from the dining hall entrance. I’ve got to do it, thought Keith as he tripped on a small rock and barely maintained his upright position. His soaked, formerly blonde hair stuck to his cheeks and hung in front of his eyes. I can do it. I just need to get inside and then I—. Keith tried to step forward, but could not. He tried again--nothing. His paralyzed legs buckled under him and he fell backwards, collapsing onto the cool resort grass as the rain began to fall more rapidly. With the last tiny drop of energy left in his soul he screamed.
“Help! Somebody help me, please!” he cried as rain fell into his parched mouth.
Two resort workers rounded the corner of the dining hall and noticed him lying on the ground motionless.
“Hey, kid,” said the taller of the two. “You alright?”
“They—they’re out there. South trail, my f—family is lost. Help them—”
Keith's heart ceased to beat, and, in consequence, Keith ceased to be. His reward for days spent restless in the wilderness was eternal sleep.
As the rain poured down upon his breathless body, the shorter of the two workers fetched a manager. The pudgy, mustache-bearing man looked down at Keith’s dirtied, bloody face and his bent wrist with the bone just barely poking through the skin.
He sighed, and, before walking away, muttered, “Kid looks like he’s been through hell.”
And that was that.
“Shut up, Tin Man.”
“How ‘bout you shut up, Barbie.”
“Calm down, kids! Now please, Troy, try to be optimistic. At least you’re not dead yet.”
“C’mon, Dad. You really think we’re going to survive? Open your eyes! Open your mind! Do you not see what I see? Is your mind so shut to anything unfortunate or adverse that you do not realize where we are? We’re in hell, father! Hell!”
Keith Tinlen awoke to the sound of boisterous blue and yellow macaws and blinding golden Ecuadorian sunlight. Doom was looming over his shoulder.
At the sound of the breakfast bell, he rose and dressed in typical tourist attire: a Hawaiian shirt two sizes too big, blue and white checkered Bermuda shorts, a tattered Cubs cap, and his dreadful purple Teva sandals that his mom made him wear. As he jogged to the dining hall, he rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes. The dining hall sat on an old stone foundation, and the roof was made of palm leaves overlapped and piled on top of each other. There were no real walls; just a burnt-yellow bamboo railing that had thin wooden pylons descending from it every few feet. As he arrived he noticed there was no food set up at the buffet as there was on typical days.
“Keith, finally you've arrived!” exclaimed Hernan. He was in his first year of guiding tourists through the rainforest, but Keith liked him. Hernan was as buff a person as Keith had ever seen; with wavy black hair that fell to his broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and a thick Spanish accent, he was any and every woman’s dream.
“Yeah, uh, where’s the food?” inquired Keith, trying not to let on that he was starving.
“Ah, sí, sí sí. I forgot to tell you last night at dinner. Today we hike to the salt lick to see the parrots your mother had asked about. We must arrive very early, though. We will eat on the trail. Okay?”
“I guess so,” replied Keith as his stomach voiced its own opinion.
“Well then, sit down so I can give the briefing.”
Keith sat on one of the many wooden benches in the briefing area—it was wet. He looked up at the ceiling and, conveniently, had a drop of water splash into his right eye.
“Hernan?
“Yes?”
“I think the roof’s leaking.”
“Nonsense, the roof never leaks.”
“A drop of water just hit me in the eye—it has to be leaking.”
“That roof has never leaked once in the fifty years it has stood here.” He paused for effect, then finished defiantly, “It’s not leaking.”
Keith decided to let it go, and instead sat reluctantly on another bench next to his sister, Amy. Amy was eight, four years younger than Keith, and had justed started third grade. In Keith’s eyes, Amy was the most annoying twerp there ever was. Between her incessant whining and endless pouting, she was an older brother’s nightmare. Amy had golden blonde hair, just like her mom, and sparkling blue eyes. Troy, Keith’s eighteen year-old brother, always called her Barbie because she so closely resembled the dolls she played with. Amy didn’t find it very amusing.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here is the plan for our hike to the salt lick we will be embarking on this morning. First, we will hike one mile—about half an hour—before eating breakfast. Then we will hike six more miles—about three hours—to the salt lick, where we will eat lunch. At about three we will leave the salt lick and head back on the same trail. We should return here in time for dinner, about six-thirty. Any questions?”
Amy raised her hand high and bounced up and down in here seat.
“Yes, Amy?”
“Are we gonna see any jaguars? We learned about those in school.”
“Lo siento Amy, but jaguars are very rare. We will probably not see one on the trail.”
“Oh… but what if we do?”
“We will not—I assure you.”
“Yeah, but wh—”
Keith's dad cut her off before she could pester Hernan any more. “Amy! Let it go.”
“Hmph,” was all she could say to that, and so she turned around to sulk.
“Alright then,” said Hernan, clearly trying to move the conversation along to avoid more conflict. “Let’s get going.”
They began their journey with Hernan in front, followed by Charlotte, the mother of the family, then Troy, Amy, Keith, and finally John, the father. They headed behind the dining hall and through the hallway in the dense rainforest that was the trail.
It was hot—too hot for the Tinlen family. In Maine, their home, it rarely got above eighty degrees. Not only did Hernan’s thermometer register a temperature above ninety-five, it was so humid that Keith felt like he was swimming rather than walking. After half an hour of hiking under the lucious green canopy that stood above they stopped for breakfast. They munched on bananas and crackers and drank water from there Nalgene bottles as they sat on moist, moss-layered boulders.
The family continued on, past a gleaming waterfall that tossed its water out of a natural drainage ditch into a gleaming stream, a giant, clay-red anthill that made Amy cringe, and finally they arrived at a vast, green, clearing. It was there that their adventure truly began.
As the convoy of tourists and guide entered the south end of the clearing, something else entered from the north. Everyone froze.
“Stay still, don’t move,” commanded Hernan in a harsh whisper. “He’ll go away after he realizes we’re not trying to hurt him.” Despite his reassurances, Hernan raised his machete and slowly took off his pack and lowered it to the ground beside him to maximize his agility. The jaguar’s deep yellow eyes stared at Keith in what he determined was pure rage. Its golden-brown skin shone in the blistering orange sun as its tail swayed slowly in the cool June breeze. It had dark brown spots with an impenetrable black lining that adorned its invitingly soft-looking fur coat. The great cat’s ears were perked, standing straight up like great curved pyramids. After several minutes of the silent staring contest, Amy spoke.
“Daddy?” she asked, far too loudly, considering the circumstances.
“Amy, hush,” whispered John.
“But daddy—” She was whining now, much, much too loudly.
“Amy—quiet!” commanded her father. His face was fire engine red with fury and frustration.
She strained her vocal chords to their breaking point and let it all out in two, window-shattering syllables: “Daddy!”
The jaguar crouched, bending its legs as though it was winding a giant, lethal, spring. It leapt with determination and resolve. Hernan took a slash at the beast, but was a fraction of a second too late. Just as the blade of the machete was about to slice through the jaguar's skin, Hernan was knocked backwards by the force of the feline's lunge. Hernan dropped the machete as he fell, and the jaguar sank its canine teeth deep into his throat. Once its prey had been killed, the jaguar dragged Hernan out of the clearing, through the opening the cat had entered through originally, and left the Tinlen family staring in awe and horror.
Then, after what had occured sank in, the group scattered in panic and alarm. John snatched the machete from the forest floor, then directed the family to the east side of the clearing. They spotted a small opening in the thick jungle and dashed through the forest in a fit of adrenaline as hanging vines and looming brances whipped their faces and the dense undergrowth tried to fling them head over heels with every step. They sprinted at an unimaginable speed for at least ten minutes, then, at a small clearing, John halted. The family collapsed to the moist forest floor of composting leaves and twigs, panting and drenched with sweat.
“What,” said Keith heavily, as though he had a car on his chest, “are we gonna do now?”
“We’ve got to get back to camp,” suggested Amy as if this was just an everyday situation, nothing too serious.
“Oh my God, that’s it. ‘We’ve got to get back to camp’—she’s brilliant!” exclaimed Troy in a much too obviously sarcastic tone.
“Calm down kids,” instructed their father. “I suggest we send one person to look for camp while the rest stay here. We still have the packed lunches and a few water bottles, so there’s no need to worry about food. When our ambassador finds the camp, they’ll organize a search party and we’ll be back in our beds by tomorrow.”
“You've got to be kidding me," retorted Charlotte as her mother's instincts kicked in. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you send one of my kids out there to die!"
"Oh, come on, honey," pleaded John. "Keith or Troy could get to camp in no time. I think it's a great plan."
"What kind of father are you, John! You're sending one of our children out there into the wilderness after our guide just got eaten by a jaguar! Are you insane?" She was fuming now, furious with John's indifference to their children's well-being. "You are not sending anyone out there alone." With that Charlotte stomped over to a tree and sat with her back against it. She was exhausted, hungry, and had no desire whatsoever to stay in the forest a second longer. Her dirty-blond hair was frizzy, sweaty, and in serious need of taming. Her thin body ached and her deep blue eyes were somber. A tear raced down her cheek, then another trailing close behind, and soon enough she was sobbing.
The rest of the family was as forlorn as their mother. Troy's long black hair was wet with sweat and drooped with fatigue. John's jutting cheek-bones were bloodstained from slashes underbrush had induced as he had run through the rainforest. His Coke-bottle glasses were smudged and his temple vein stood out like a ridge amidst floodplain.
There was silence. Nobody said anything, for nobody had anything to say. Finally, after minutes of harsh panting and the wiping sweat from foreheads, Keith spoke.
"I'll go," he murmured so quietly that Charlotte had to strain to hear it.
"What?" asked John, surprised.
"I'll go," he declared, a little louder this time.
"No way!" objected Charlotte.
"Mom, somebody has to go! We can't just sit here waiting to starve--we've got to do something."
"Keith, please," pleaded his mother. "Don't do this. You don't have to go, we can think of another plan."
"No, mom. I'm going."
"But--" She threw her arms up and strode to the opposite end of their small clearing as tears of frustration and helplessness began to flow from her eyes. She weeped loud enough for the rest of the family to hear, whether on purpose or not the rest of the family didn't know.
John broke the awkward silence. "You can take this pack. It’s got a banana, some bread, a water bottle, and a few crackers. Take the machete too," he said as he handed Keith Hernan's blade. "You’ll do fine.” John threw the pack onto Keith’s shoulders and gave him a hefty pat on the back. “Good luck,” he added, and lightly pushed him towards the jungle as he pointed south. “Go that way.”
With that, Keith left the clearing as his family offered their goodbyes:
“Have fun out there, bro,” called Troy.
“I’m hungry,” whined Amy.
“See you later son,” said John. “Make me proud.”
Finally, his mother: “You’ll do fine Keith. I love you.”
Keith paused momentarily at his mother's comment, then continued on. He wandered along aimlessly, not knowing where he was to go. At about eight-thirty the sun began to set. The blazing orange sphere sank slowly into the dark purple crevice of dusk, and then into the black abyss of night. Keith found himself a decent-sized tree and climbed up its rough, scraping, limbs. He found a spot where two thick branches met the trunk in the same place and sat upright, back against the tree, legs supported by the branches, and feet dangling over the emptiness beneath him. He was starved, as he had been all day, and ate the banana and the crackers, but left the bread—he would eat that for breakfast. He took a few swigs from his water bottle, then closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but he became engulfed in the thought of his family.
He stayed up all night thinking. At first light he ate his bread, then descended from his nest like a fireman down his pole and started walking. At about noon it started to rain. It was really more than rain though. It was a downpour, with pea-sized drops that felt like bullets on Keith’s bare face. He stopped walking and hid below the relative shelter of a tree, trying to soak up all the dryness he could. He finished off his water bottle and moved on.
Keith slept in the same fashion as he had the night before, but this evening he fell asleep as soon as he rested his head on the trunk of his tree. In the morning he woke up and cut his way through the jungle until dusk, then found a tree and slept. He repeated this routine for three more days. On the fifth day the rain relapsed, this time as a Seattle-style drizzle, and on the sixth the trouble started.
At dusk, when the drizzle finally let up, Keith decided, foolishly, to stay walking through the night. Keith was not a moron, just intoxicated with his mission, drunk with the idea of having a family that was proud of him. He hiked through the night without event until he heard the rustling.
It came from the forest to his left, and, remembering the jaguar from before, fled immediately. He raced through the jungle, vines whipping and cutting his dirtied face. He attempted to cut away the vegetation in front of him with the machete, but to no avail. As he sprinted he came upon a root, raised maybe an inch off the ground. As his foot hit the wood, still slick from the rains of the afternoon, he slipped.
He threw his hands out in front of him as he fell, which broke his fall and his left wrist. In the throes of hunger, suffering from extreme pain, muddy, and soaking wet, Keith lay on the ground. To his right he saw something—a frog. He knew he had no choice. His right hand darted out and quickly, without thinking, he popped the bright yellow frog into his mouth. The poison dart frog slipped silently down Keith’s throat and set the gears of death in motion.
He had sobered up from his idiotic nighttime endeavor and climbed the nearest tree. As he reclined into a soggy slumber, he saw the light.
“Tin Man,” called Amy from across the clearing, “what’s gonna happen to us?”
“First of all, my name’s not Tin Man. Second of all, what do you think is gonna happen? We are going to die!”
“Mellow out, Troy,” instructed his father.
“Death will come to us all eventually, Troy," said Charlotte in a philosophical tone. "We must accept it as fact and move on.”
“Yeah, whatever, but it’s just so preposterous,” continued Troy. “Death is such an unfair process. Why is it that I, a future student at Harvard—someone who has worth—die at age eighteen when rapists live to eighty in jail? It’s completely ridiculous. You would think that God would have some common sense, but apparently—“
“Shut up, Tin Man.”
“How ‘bout you shut up, Barbie.”
“Calm down, kids! Now please, Troy, try to be optimistic. At least you’re not
dead yet.”
“C’mon, Dad. You really think we’re going to survive? Open your eyes! Open your mind! Do you not see what I see? Is your mind so shut to anything unfortunate or adverse that you do not realize where we are? We’re in hell, father! Hell!”
“Heaven or hell,” said Charlotte smoothly, “we must stay optimistic. I bet Keith and the search party’ll be walking down that trail any minute now.”
“Keith? What a joke! That little twerp is probably crying next to a tree somewhere because he’s been away from his mommy for too long. You guys should have sent me—I would’ve been back at that camp in a minute!” said Troy.
“Yeah, Keith’s a goner,” added Amy.
“Amy, Troy, I’ve had enough of you two!” Charlotte was full to the brim with anger. Never before had her voice been raised above a calm command, and yet now she stood and roared with all of her throat’s might. “Your brother is out there in the jungle risking his life so that you two can survive, not so that you can sit here whining and complaining like the sick, spoiled, nightmarish children you are! Now if either one of you says one more thing about your brother that has any negative connotation whatsoever, you’ll be searching for the camp too—except you won’t get any food! So shut up and sit down!”
Troy and Amy were looking down, as if the top of their heads would deflect the outburst. They said nothing for a long, long time.
Sitting in his perch among the foliage, Keith spotted the spotlight on the resort’s lookout tower. In a matter of seconds he was on the ground running. As he dashed through the forest in the light of the moon, he began to feel dizzy. His world began to spin like he was standing on a dradle. Lightheaded with exhaustion, Keith continued to stumble his way towards the camp.
He had found the trail by accident, and could see the dining hall in the distance now, a speck of light at the end of a long stretch of trail. He staggered along, unaware of the imminent doom and thinking only of his family and how proud they would be. Keith swayed from side to side—he was five feet from the resort grounds. He lurched forward step by step as it began to drizzle little drops of heaven. Keith had entered the resort grounds and was ten feet from the dining hall entrance.
I’ve got to do it, thought Keith as he tripped on a small rock and barely maintained his upright position. His soaked, formerly blonde hair stuck to his cheeks and hung in front of his eyes. I can do it. I just need to get inside and then I—. Keith tried to step forward, but could not. He tried again--nothing. His paralyzed legs buckled under him and he fell backwards, collapsing onto the cool resort grass as the rain began to fall more rapidly. With the last tiny drop of energy left in his soul he screamed.
“Help! Somebody help me, please!” he cried as rain fell into his parched mouth.
Two resort workers rounded the corner of the dining hall and noticed him lying on the ground motionless.
“Hey, kid,” said the taller of the two. “You alright?”
“They—they’re out there. South trail, my f—family is lost. Help them—”
Keith's heart ceased to beat, and, in consequence, Keith ceased to be. His reward for days spent restless in the wilderness was eternal sleep.
As the rain poured down upon his breathless body, the shorter of the two workers fetched a manager. The pudgy, mustache-bearing man looked down at Keith’s dirtied, bloody face and his bent wrist with the bone just barely poking through the skin.
He sighed, and, before walking away, muttered, “Kid looks like he’s been through hell.”
And that was that.